Please post your questions and comments under the appropriate category.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Class registration
Questions about registration process, cross-registration with other schools, instructor permission courses, course availability, scheduling
11 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Why is it that the class registration seems to be geared neither towards the convenience of students nor professors nor even administrators?
Things such as setting up a schedule online in ssol before registering, getting on a digital wait-list or even getting instructor permission are done or need to happen in so many bizarre and bureaucratic ways that it really makes the whole process of signing up for classes incredibly onerous.
This is not to speak of the issues where classes are completely booked that are required for particular concentrations. I just wonder if it would be possible for their to be better planning and better registration facilities available that are geared both towards easing the process for students and for professors.
Why my 4-credits, time-consuming, labor-intensive, and certainly life enriching Beginners Language Class cannot be counted towards the credits needed to complete the MIA degree? What is the reasoning behind this?
Not having these credits counted towards the degree discourages students to start a new language from scratch during their education at SIPA.
When the course "Globalization, International Migration & Development" was canceled the day before it started, the options of those registered for this class were extremely limited, making the situation extremely frustrating. Many were forced to sign up to unappealing courses just to complete the credit requirements, as appealing courses were already filled. What is OSA doing to avoid this short-notice class cancellation from happening again? If it were to happen again, what plan does OSA has to assist students affected by this short-notice class cancellation?
The number of spots open for non-SIPA students in particular courses should be directly proportional to the number of spots SIPA students receive in non-SIPA classes. I have witnessed many incidents of non-SIPA students getting into SIPA classes while SIPA students have had a particularly difficult time getting into bschool or law school classes. Moreover, SIPA instructor permission courses should be closed off to non-SIPA students so that we have have full access to these classes that are supposedly for "us."
Why are we only finding out now about some of our final exam schedules?
Also, it is ridiculous that there are no digital waitlists. It practically creates a lottery system for getting into classes... if you are lucky enough to try and register when another student just dropped, you get in, whereas, you might have tried 30 times to get in, and someone else gets your spot because of better timing.
Finally, i think class registration should take place earlier. It was incredibly frustrating not to be able to tell my job when i would be able to work for the entire month of september until september had practically started. It is incredibly unprofessional, which I do not think is the image SIPA wants us to represent in our professional endeavors.
Why aren't we allowed to register for whichever economics class that we want to take? I was told that I could not register for Bubula's course because it was full and I am not a finance concentrator. Considering the amount of tuition we pay, it seems unreasonable to prohibit us from choosing the level of economics we prefer. We're not here to get good grades and take whatever class is easiest, we're here to get a quality education.
Most irrelevant classes are available for us to register at the Business School this semester. We should be able to take classes like Debt Markets and Security Analysis. What is the rationality behind the way the Business School/SIPA cross-registration works?
We need to have more courses available for the IFP concentration and probably others as well. Given the scarcity of courses and all the caps on the courses that are available, it is a wonder students are able to register for any classes at all.
I am a J Termer and I am finding it a bit difficult to wrestle with taking fist year courses along with 2nd year courses. It is not conducive to scheduling with group work, when one group is all 1st years and another group is all 2nd years. This process of year long courses that only start in January need to rethought out.
I am wondering if there is a way for SIPA to a.) allow us to register earlier for upcoming semesters and b.) give us a list at the start of the academic year of courses confirmed for both the fall and spring semesters. I realize that in September, there are still many spring courses that are not yet confirmed. However, I did see that this year the student directory offered a Spring 2008 list just a few weeks after fall registration closed- why coudn't this be posted earlier? As a second year student trying to map out my requirements and the courses I will take between now and graduation, I found it frustrating that I had to make decisionsabout this semester without having any idea of what will be offered next semester.
Also- why is it that so many courses are listed in the directory w/o the course syllabus? The course title is rarely enough information to go on- particularly second year when students are taking fewer core requirements.
First, I don't understand where our ginormously expensive tuition went. How come Columbia as a world class university has such crappy registration system that it crashes ALL the time, never functions well, and is excessively bureaucratic. I was pushed around different departments, running around different departments in Kent Hall and SIPA SAO and registration help site, and yet no one was able to answer my question or help me to solve my problem. No one seems to have a clear idea whether a class is offered or not. This is very frustrating on top of the unworking technology of the registration website. Why can't there be a waitlist? Why do students have to worry about getting into their core classes? and Why do students need to sit in front of the computer and keep trying to register for classes and at the same time, the registration system crashes and locks you out of the system for an entire day? With the expensive tuition Columbia and SIPA charges, there should be substantial technological upgrade for the registration system. I can say that there has been much more perfect registration system in other public universities where they charge 1/3 of what Columbia charges.
11 comments:
Why is it that the class registration seems to be geared neither towards the convenience of students nor professors nor even administrators?
Things such as setting up a schedule online in ssol before registering, getting on a digital wait-list or even getting instructor permission are done or need to happen in so many bizarre and bureaucratic ways that it really makes the whole process of signing up for classes incredibly onerous.
This is not to speak of the issues where classes are completely booked that are required for particular concentrations. I just wonder if it would be possible for their to be better planning and better registration facilities available that are geared both towards easing the process for students and for professors.
Why my 4-credits, time-consuming, labor-intensive, and certainly life enriching Beginners Language Class cannot be counted towards the credits needed to complete the MIA degree? What is the reasoning behind this?
Not having these credits counted towards the degree discourages students to start a new language from scratch during their education at SIPA.
When the course "Globalization, International Migration & Development" was canceled the day before it started, the options of those registered for this class were extremely limited, making the situation extremely frustrating. Many were forced to sign up to unappealing courses just to complete the credit requirements, as appealing courses were already filled.
What is OSA doing to avoid this short-notice class cancellation from happening again?
If it were to happen again, what plan does OSA has to assist students affected by this short-notice class cancellation?
The number of spots open for non-SIPA students in particular courses should be directly proportional to the number of spots SIPA students receive in non-SIPA classes. I have witnessed many incidents of non-SIPA students getting into SIPA classes while SIPA students have had a particularly difficult time getting into bschool or law school classes. Moreover, SIPA instructor permission courses should be closed off to non-SIPA students so that we have have full access to these classes that are supposedly for "us."
Why are we only finding out now about some of our final exam schedules?
Also, it is ridiculous that there are no digital waitlists. It practically creates a lottery system for getting into classes... if you are lucky enough to try and register when another student just dropped, you get in, whereas, you might have tried 30 times to get in, and someone else gets your spot because of better timing.
Finally, i think class registration should take place earlier. It was incredibly frustrating not to be able to tell my job when i would be able to work for the entire month of september until september had practically started. It is incredibly unprofessional, which I do not think is the image SIPA wants us to represent in our professional endeavors.
Why aren't we allowed to register for whichever economics class that we want to take? I was told that I could not register for Bubula's course because it was full and I am not a finance concentrator. Considering the amount of tuition we pay, it seems unreasonable to prohibit us from choosing the level of economics we prefer. We're not here to get good grades and take whatever class is easiest, we're here to get a quality education.
Most irrelevant classes are available for us to register at the Business School this semester. We should be able to take classes like Debt Markets and Security Analysis. What is the rationality behind the way the Business School/SIPA cross-registration works?
We need to have more courses available for the IFP concentration and probably others as well. Given the scarcity of courses and all the caps on the courses that are available, it is a wonder students are able to register for any classes at all.
J TERMERS
I am a J Termer and I am finding it a bit difficult to wrestle with taking fist year courses along with 2nd year courses. It is not conducive to scheduling with group work, when one group is all 1st years and another group is all 2nd years. This process of year long courses that only start in January need to rethought out.
I am wondering if there is a way for SIPA to
a.) allow us to register earlier for upcoming semesters and
b.) give us a list at the start of the academic year of courses confirmed for both the fall and spring semesters. I realize that in September, there are still many spring courses that are not yet confirmed. However, I did see that this year the student directory offered a Spring 2008 list just a few weeks after fall registration closed- why coudn't this be posted earlier? As a second year student trying to map out my requirements and the courses I will take between now and graduation, I found it frustrating that I had to make decisionsabout this semester without having any idea of what will be offered next semester.
Also- why is it that so many courses are listed in the directory w/o the course syllabus? The course title is rarely enough information to go on- particularly second year when students are taking fewer core requirements.
First, I don't understand where our ginormously expensive tuition went. How come Columbia as a world class university has such crappy registration system that it crashes ALL the time, never functions well, and is excessively bureaucratic. I was pushed around different departments, running around different departments in Kent Hall and SIPA SAO and registration help site, and yet no one was able to answer my question or help me to solve my problem. No one seems to have a clear idea whether a class is offered or not. This is very frustrating on top of the unworking technology of the registration website. Why can't there be a waitlist? Why do students have to worry about getting into their core classes? and Why do students need to sit in front of the computer and keep trying to register for classes and at the same time, the registration system crashes and locks you out of the system for an entire day? With the expensive tuition Columbia and SIPA charges, there should be substantial technological upgrade for the registration system. I can say that there has been much more perfect registration system in other public universities where they charge 1/3 of what Columbia charges.
Post a Comment